Mark Twain, a Biography. Complete eBook

Of course, with this encouragement, Clemens was in
the clouds again. Furthermore, Rogers had suggested
to his son-in-law, William Evarts Benjamin, also a
subscription publisher, that he buy from the Webster
company The Library of American Literature for fifty
thousand dollars, a sum which provided for the more
insistent creditors. There was hope that the
worst was over. Clemens did in reality give up
walking the floor, and for the time, at least, found
happier diversions. He must not return to Europe
as yet, for the type-setter matter was still far from
conclusion. On the 11th of November he was gorgeously
entertained by the Lotos Club in its new building.
Introducing him, President Frank Lawrence said:

“What name is there in literature that can be
likened to his? Perhaps some of the distinguished
gentlemen about this table can tell us, but I know
of none. Himself his only parallel, it seems to
me. He is all our own—­a ripe and perfect
product of the American soil.”

CLXXXVI

“ThebelleofnewYork”

Those were feverish weeks of waiting, with days of
alternate depression and exaltation as the pendulum
swung to and fro between hope and despair. By
daylight Clemens tried to keep himself strenuously
busy; evenings and nights he plunged into social activities—­dinners,
amusements, suppers, balls, and the like. He
was besieged with invitations, sought for by the gayest
and the greatest; “Jamie” Dodge conferred
upon him the appropriate title: of “The
Belle of New York.” In his letters home
he describes in detail many of the festivities and
the wildness with which he has flung himself into
them, dilating on his splendid renewal of health,
his absolute immunity from fatigue. He attributes
this to his indifference to diet and regularities
of meals and sleep; but we may guess that it was due
to a reaction from having shifted his burden to stronger
financial shoulders. Henry Rogers had taken his
load upon him.

“It rests me,” Rogers said, “to
experiment with the affairs of a friend when I am
tired of my own. You enjoy yourself. Let
me work at the puzzle a little.”

And Clemens, though his conscience pricked him, obeyed,
as was his habit at such times. To Mrs. Clemens
(in Paris now, at the Hotel Brighton) he wrote:

He is not common clay, but fine-fine
& delicate. I did hate to burden his good
heart & overworked head, but he took hold with avidity
& said it was no burden to work for his friends, but
a pleasure. When I arrived in September,
Lord! how black the prospect was & how desperate,
how incurably desperate! Webster & Co. had to
have a small sum of money or go under at once.
I flew to Hartford —­to my friends—­but
they were not moved, not strongly interested, & I
was ashamed that I went. It was from Mr. Rogers,
a stranger, that I got the money and was by it
saved. And then—­while still a stranger—­he